A intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
